Why can't messages pop up while in the map?

[Scoob]

Hey all,

Perhaps I'm forgetting about some issue we had in the past, but why were most messaged prevented from popping up while on the map screen?

I'm at a fairly late stage of the game, so I spend a LOT of time on the map screen overseeing my assets. I'm ready to teleport to locations as needed to take direct action as required. However, so many times after I've been doing some admin, I exit the map to be greeted by ship deaths or other incidents that I could have reacted to if the game had informed me about them.

I had a patrolling fleet wander off earlier, they chased an enemy into a neighbouring enemy-owned sector and got beaten up. I found out several minutes after it was too late to do anything about it. Reload. Another time I was once again in the map checking something. I think, let's pop down a save now, it's been 30 minutes or so. I hit shift + s to save, which momentarily closes the map screen and I see a load of RED messages showing ships have been destroyed. Not notification while in the map.

I'm simply not getting ANY notifications AT ALL most of the time, until it's too late, all because I'm using the Map screen. Sure, some messages still pop up - the direct "Hey, something's going on here" type comms, where we get the little PiP. However, most times I get nothing. If I was informed that several ships had been DESTROYED in rapid succession, you can be sure I'd do something about it. However, as they were killed to quickly for a "I'm in trouble" type PiP message. I'm none the wiser.

Too many times now, I've just finished a load of admin type stuff on the Map screen - expanding stations, ordering new ships, and moving fleets around - only to be greeted by dozens of dead ship messages when I exit. I'll then usually reload, if I have a recent enough save, so I can deal with the thing I WASN'T told about until it was too late previously.

Obviously messages popping up over the Map screen were considered BAD for some reason - I'm talking the bottom left panel here of course - but, with the amount of time I spend on the Map screen, something needs to be done about this. Now, sure, I can try to remember to exit the map every 30 seconds or so to ensure I don't miss anything, but that's REALLY not the point at all here. Also, I DON'T want to be constantly PAUSING to ensure I don't miss anything, as that interrupts the flow of the game hugely.

What do people think, something needs to be done here, right? Any suggestions? Should the lower-left panel simply be displayed OVER the map? What's stopping this from being a thing? If it really is a problem for some technical reason, how else could live messages be displayed while in the map?

[adeine]

The best way to do it would be to have a persistent message ticker/bar at the bottom of the screen across menus.

Something like this


Then clicking (anywhere) on a notification while in the map interface could directly take you to it on the map. Simple and convenient.

[vvvvvvvv]

Hey all,

Perhaps I'm forgetting about some issue we had in the past, but why were most messaged prevented from popping up while on the map screen?

It was apparently a deliberate challenge in 7.50 and in practice it turned out to be a very bad idea. Now player misses messages, fails to receive notifications, and is spammed with notifications if he/she spent too much time on the map.

Previous version had no problem demonstrating messages on top of the map.

[LameFox]

This change has fixed no problems for me and been a source of constant irritation ever since. I have no idea what they were thinking or how they imagine the game being played that would make this seem like a good idea.

[alt3rn1ty]

The best way to do it would be to have a persistent message ticker/bar at the bottom of the screen across menus.

Something like this


Then clicking (anywhere) on a notification while in the map interface could directly take you to it on the map. Simple and convenient.

I remember you posting that in the beta testing aswell, it really was all round the best solution to the problem (I think I made a mockup idea of just shifting the message box to the lower or upper middle of the Map UI, but yours was the better idea).
I dont know why Egosoft didn't respond to it, maybe they did try something without us knowing and there were technical challenges we dont know about. But they just stopped engaging with everyone on the subject after a while. Maybe it was just a bit too contentious for them to get wrapped up in publicly .. idk.

[adeine]

I remember you posting that in the beta testing aswell, it really was all round the best solution to the problem (I think I made a mockup idea of just shifting the message box to the lower or upper middle of the Map UI, but yours was the better idea).
I dont know why Egosoft didn't respond to it, maybe they did try something without us knowing and there were technical challenges we dont know about. But they just stopped engaging with everyone on the subject after a while. Maybe it was just a bit too contentious for them to get wrapped up in publicly .. idk.

Full UI thread/mockups for reference.

I think it can be difficult from a player point of view to gauge the internal priorities of the studio. If there's anything X4's patch history has shown it's that there are issues with/community wishes regarding game features that see discussion and feedback going back years and years with zero response until a dev decides to pick it up as a pet issue or it randomly shows up in a patch note. Quite a few things that were widely dismissed as never happening too (reworking of boost energy or the radar, to give a recent example).

Best we can do is periodically rekindle the discussion and keep things in their vague awareness (hopefully without being a nuisance or sounding like a broken record).

[Scoob]

I do recall it being deliberate, but I can't recall what they were trying to fix with it. I remember there was some weirdness with stuff popping up while in the map screen, but I assumed they'd fix whatever was going on eventually, and the lack of messages was perhaps a temporary work-around for something.

Personally speaking, I have no problem with messages popping up while I'm on the Map screen. I turn off a lot of the notification options, so the ones that DO pop up (when not in the map) are often ones I actually care about.

A news ticker type approach might work just fine, but I don't really understand why the existing low-left panel notification cannot be displayed while in the map screen. Some technical issue I presume.

[Falcrack]

Yeah, I really dislike missing messages in the map screen. The suggested ticker format presented in this thread would be very nice.

[Falcrack]

A news ticker type approach might work just fine, but I don't really understand why the existing low-left panel notification cannot be displayed while in the map screen. Some technical issue I presume.

I don't like the lower left panel in the map screen for messages because it covers up too many critical map features. Not great trying to click on ships and being unable too because it is covered with that massive panel.

[alt3rn1ty]

~, but I don't really understand why the existing low-left panel notification cannot be displayed while in the map screen. Some technical issue I presume.

I don't like the lower left panel in the map screen for messages because it covers up too many critical map features. Not great trying to click on ships and being unable too because it is covered with that massive panel.

.. and it pops up just a split second before you want to click to select, or right click for the context menu, on a ship in your properties list. While they were trialling the message box popping up at the lower left on the map it was soooo annoying at doing that and you either had to wait for the message box to go away (especially annoying if in a battle and you just want to quickly remote command another ship somewhere), or distract yourself from your immediate local map concerns to get the map to where the ship you want to command actually is.
And is even more annoying on a lower screen resolution if you dont have a massive monitor or your machine cant handle the higher resolutions with this game running.
It just got in the way all the damn time.

[LameFox]

If we're trying to maximise saved space and minimise unexpected annoyance, why not just treat it like a chat window you can open and close? If you get some important message while minimised it can blink at you or something. I feel like I've seen chats in MMOs work similar to that some 20 years ago.

[vvvvvvvv]

~, but I don't really understand why the existing low-left panel notification cannot be displayed while in the map screen. Some technical issue I presume.

I don't like the lower left panel in the map screen for messages because it covers up too many critical map features. Not great trying to click on ships and being unable too because it is covered with that massive panel.

.. and it pops up just a split second before you want to click to select, or right click for the context menu, on a ship in your properties list. While they were trialling the message box popping up at the lower left on the map it was soooo annoying at doing that and you either had to wait for the message box to go away (especially annoying if in a battle and you just want to quickly remote command another ship somewhere), or distract yourself from your immediate local map concerns to get the map to where the ship you want to command actually is.
And is even more annoying on a lower screen resolution if you dont have a massive monitor or your machine cant handle the higher resolutions with this game running.
It just got in the way all the damn time.

There's plenty of space under left panel and it can be treated as collapseable chat window. Like it is done with ship stats. Currently player misses VERy important message and then it pesters with no longer needed messages for a long time. It is a completely awful design with no positives.

Also, right now the game loves to auto save when you're about to do something.

[Falcrack]

If we're trying to maximise saved space and minimise unexpected annoyance, why not just treat it like a chat window you can open and close? If you get some important message while minimised it can blink at you or something. I feel like I've seen chats in MMOs work similar to that some 20 years ago.

There are lots of potential solutions which would work better than what we have now. Devs just need to know it is an important issue that enough people care about to spend the time to properly implement it.

[alt3rn1ty]

I don't like the lower left panel in the map screen for messages because it covers up too many critical map features. Not great trying to click on ships and being unable too because it is covered with that massive panel.

.. and it pops up just a split second before you want to click to select, or right click for the context menu, on a ship in your properties list. While they were trialling the message box popping up at the lower left on the map it was soooo annoying at doing that and you either had to wait for the message box to go away (especially annoying if in a battle and you just want to quickly remote command another ship somewhere), or distract yourself from your immediate local map concerns to get the map to where the ship you want to command actually is.
And is even more annoying on a lower screen resolution if you dont have a massive monitor or your machine cant handle the higher resolutions with this game running.
It just got in the way all the damn time.

There's plenty of space under left panel and it can be treated as collapseable chat window. Like it is done with ship stats. Currently player misses VERy important message and then it pesters with no longer needed messages for a long time. It is a completely awful design with no positives.

Also, right now the game loves to auto save when you're about to do something.

On a laptop screen with limited vertical height my property menu constantly runs off the screen bottom, so during that beta phase when the intrusion of the messages over the map ui was being tested it was awful.
Collapsing it does not solve the problem I described if you wish to command ships in that list, and you have quite a few stations / fleets (already collapsed which are always at the top, pushing the ships to command down the bottom of the list).

I know we do still miss important messages, it affects me too and I agree its still bad, but what we currently have is I think Egosofts best compromise of a bad situation .. But as previously mentioned Adeine's suggestion would have worked well for anyones preferences.

[vvvvvvvv]

On a laptop screen with limited vertical height my property menu constantly runs off the screen bottom, so

I'm on 1080p and that's low resolution these days. The message window took between 1/4 ... 1/8th of the vertical screen and never interfered with anything. Compared to that behavior, current state of things is a major regression and a huge leap back.

So this has to be a configurable option and not implemented this way. It can also use smaller fonts, etc. And there is no excuse for the current infuriating behavior where it SLOWLY scrolls through 200 messages you missed while you were o nthe map.

[alt3rn1ty]

I dont even know what 1080P is, my screen res is 1366 x 768, not sure what vertical amount of pixels a 1080P (setting?) is.
Edit : Just looked it up, wow you have 1920 x 1080 screen res, I wouldn't be able to use any AA at that res, it would affect FPS negatively on my machine.

Anyway yes, going a bit off topic and getting technical ..

I think we all agree current implementation is still bad no matter what they tried during that beta phase.
If they beta test any new solutions in future .. take part in the testing.

[vvvvvvvv]

I dont even know what 1080P is, my screen res is 1366 x 768, not sure what vertical amount of pixels a 1080P (setting?) is.
Edit : Just looked it up, wow you have 1920 x 1080 screen res, I wouldn't be able to use any AA at that res, it would affect FPS negatively on my machine.

1080p aka 1920x1080 is pretty much a standard/default and people often demand 4k support, ideally at 60 fps. 4k is 3840x2160. I don't see a point in going this far, as I won't be seeing a difference so I probably will never upgrade beyond 1080p.

Also, I tend to disable AA in all games.

Regarding your screen the game would need to properly scale down message log and use a different font for smaller res. It probably wasn't doing that properly, and that's the thing that should've been fixed. And not this.

I mean, a message log at a corner was a standard in old RPGs, they run at much lower resolutions and it never was a problem. See Fallout 2 screenshots for example.

[alt3rn1ty]

Yes I pointed out during the testing that they should also consider people using UI scaling for bad eyesight on small screen res (which makes the map ui property list a bit larger in my case). Smaller fonts on the message ticker (or anything else) would be worse than they already are .. I have tried all sorts of combinations for my eyesight including all accessibility settings and cant really change from what I settled with. My glasses give me very good eyesight, but the balance between performance and useability is still a fine line for me.
Its not just about whats standard these days, if the game gives resolutions and settings for diversity of users, then whatever is implemented should be adaptable for all of us using whatever combinations of those settings we use.

Edit : Treating myself and getting a new machine soon, so hopefully will solve a few problems .. will see how things go thereafter.

[adeine]

I play on 4k with UI scale at 1 and the property list fills the entire left side of my screen. Having the left HUD box there would interfere significantly.

[Scoob]

I don't like the lower left panel in the map screen for messages because it covers up too many critical map features. Not great trying to click on ships and being unable too because it is covered with that massive panel.

I don't love it, but I guess how intrusive it is depends on game resolution and UI scale. For me, it was never that intrusive. Same can be said about the lower-right Panel, that got in my way a number of times last night, I needed to select something that was underneath it when it popped up, but I just scrolled the map / changed the zoom without even thinking. Missing critical messages does far more harm.

For the record, I play at 1440p and UI scaling is whatever it defaults to for that resolution.

Here's what Egosoft could do... dual monitor support! Allow us to drag stuff to the second screen... that'd be cool... for me. Obviously NOT a serious suggestion there, nor something I'd ever expect Egosoft to consider. However, these messages are IMPORTANT! I turn off the ones I don't care about, so I REALLY need to see the ones I've asked to. Now I'm quite late-game, with a few active combat fleets and stuff going on, I NEED to be informed when a ship comes under attack the MOMENT it comes under attack.

I don't know what the solution is here, there's obviously some technical thing that led to the change. I really would like to see those carefully filtered messages though please. I'm spending a LOT of time in the map, so much going on in my game at the moment.